


Come Over Now (And Talk Me Down)

by reelreal



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Musing, Self-Indulgent, this is just me rambling, unbetaed, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 16:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reelreal/pseuds/reelreal
Summary: It's 3am and Youngho finds himself lost in thoughts, about him, piano, dancing, home, and Ten.





	Come Over Now (And Talk Me Down)

**Author's Note:**

> This is just me drowning in Troye Sivan's Talk Me Down, oh and it's written in one sitting so please bear with all the random words and lack of vocabularies.
> 
> Set about june 2016, so yes Johnny hasnt debuted yet in this.

It’s 3am.

 

Youngho walks to where he put his phone hours prior, stopping the music that is still blaring from the speakers. He looks back up to the clock, the tick-tock sound can be heard clearer now that the music is gone.

 

The tall guy turns his wifi on. He had turned it off along with his mobile data to lessen any distraction that might come when he is practicing. It won’t be a good practice for him if a vibration or two comes halfway into a song.

 

After all, dancing, for him, is his safe space.

 

The only time he can be and show himself in the raw, truest version. When he can let himself be as perfect and as flawed as he is; not as he wants himself to be.

 

Dancing by his own is different with when he is with all his other  _ comrades _ , where he has to follow their perfection, their pace, and their harmony. He does not have to show what people want to be shown.

 

He can be himself.

 

No matter how being himself means being black and blue, battered and tattered down to the ground.

 

As his phone gets connected to the wifi, tens of notifications came.  _ It’s the group chat, _ he thinks.

 

The group chat. The place where his happiness and misery comes as one. The place where he can see his pride, and where his remaining confidence can be swooped down at the same time.

 

He opens the group chat, rows of new selfies,  _ selcas _ , he corrected himself, comes. Mostly of Ten and other members. They had just finished a fansign from somewhere in the other side of the country.

 

Everyone looks so happy in the picture.

 

He scrolls down, looking at all the messages that came from the other  _ comrades _ . Everyone saying how proud they are at those who were there, and how envious they are because they can’t be there. A smile creeps onto Youngho’s face. He knows how it feels. He is in the same boat as them. He is proud, but at the same time, crushed down.

 

He closes the group chat, decided to not say anything, and ignores the individual chat that came. He knows who sent them and what is being said. He doesn’t need to see them.

 

Again, he turned the wifi off.

 

Sitting down, he tries to look for a song to dance to.

 

Seeing all those messages and photos, of the debuted members and their fans, builds up a new frustration inside him. He needs to dance it away, to get rid of the green monster that starts to move.

 

To get rid of the tears that start to build up behind his eyes.

 

How long has it been since he had started?

 

The memory that started off fresh as though it was yesterday had blurred. He can’t even remember how many years ago was it when he started to dance inside the blue sky colored room. When he, a pure innocent junior high school student from Chicago, came to the familiar but strange at the same time Korea, and started living a life different from any of his peers.

 

He had loved music ever since he could remember. The blacks and whites of his piano keys felt more familiar on his fingers than all the pens he had to use at school.

 

To him, music was everything. Books come second, because as much as he loves them, he had never felt the urgent need to just touch them for hours after a bad day at school.

 

Piano was both his home and escape.

 

He had never felt more at home than when he was in front of his piano. At the same time, he would escape from his home with it.

 

That was when he realised that music was the only thing he wanted to do. He wanted to live, breathe, and do music.

 

So when he heard that there is an audition, he decided to try it out.

 

Young naive Youngho had no idea what an idol is, but he knew that being one would enable him to live with music. So he prepared himself, singing the hymn he had memorised from all the church visits everyday.

 

When he sang in front of them, he had no idea that being accepted would mean he had to leave his family,  _ his piano _ , and go to his parents’,  _ his, _ home country.

 

He had almost rejected it. Not wanting to leave all the familiarity that is his life in Chicago. But in the end he faltered to the thought of being able to live with music.

 

If the current Youngho could talk with the naive young Youngho of that time, he would really tell him to reject it. That the life he currently leads is far from how he had wanted it to be.

 

Few months in, he started to learn how good dancing felt. How just moving his body would make him forget anything. How just with a single move he could be flying all over in his head, and just  _ live _ and  _ breathe _ with the music.

 

Dancing captivated him, pulling him away little by little from the keys and strings of the piano.

 

He had lost the familiarity with piano he had once had. No longer having the opportunity to touch them as long as he wanted.

 

The moments when he could touch them, it would feel strange. But they were welcoming him back, back to the home he used to live in.

 

It was weird at first, having two different homes, safe spaces, at the same time. But it was fun. He could go back and forth to each of them if he wanted.

 

Until both his homes started to shatter in front of his eyes.

 

He had been naive to think that he could live and breathe music just as he wanted. He was naive to not see that there was a competition that would tear and tire him down.

 

He had to make both piano and dancing as a tool, as something he would have to use to defeat people, and not as his haven anymore. They started to lose their purpose in his life.

 

And Youngho started to lose himself.

 

He forgot why he was there, in the foreign Korea, gathered with people from all over the world. He got lost in the competition to  _ debut. _

 

One by one his friends had left him, either to debut or just fallen apart on their aimless way. Youngho was waiting for his time to fall apart as well, so he could just leave everything and go back to Chicago, maybe to find something else to breathe in.

 

Comes 2013, a certain boy with dark sparkling orbs came to him crashing like a falling star.

 

He reminds him of who he used to be. A pure, naive, innocent boy just wanting to live and breathe music. Still believing that he could do so.

 

So Youngho had decided to go back to his old way. Guiding the boy with him to the home he used to live in, the one the boy still lived in, and hoping that they would live in there together.

 

The boy, Ten, reminded Youngho how fun dancing used to be. How just moving each part of his body could make him feel ecstatic and not just makes him lethargic after.

 

Ten also reminded him the reason piano started to become his home at the first place. How it would make people happy just by listening to him playing piano. When piano was not just a tool for him to get judged by.

 

Ten had became another of his home.

 

Yet, just like all his old homes, Ten and him started to fall apart.

 

Youngho would never blame Ten, no he wouldn’t.

 

He knew Ten was in all another level than he would ever be. That Ten had all what those people up there wanted to see.

 

It came as no surprise when Ten got to debut before him.

 

Ten, who was there for even less than half of the duration he was there.

 

He could still remember how Ten came to him, tears streaming down both of his beautiful eyes as he told him: “I’m debuting.”

 

A surge of pride came onto Youngho. After all, he was the one who guided Ten there. To the home that Ten now live in, the music and the dances.

 

But at the same time, he felt like his home was stolen and was left with nothing.

 

Once again, Youngho felt lost. Having nowhere to go.

 

So he goes back to his home. His piano and his dancing. Trying to find anything that would ease the pain of having Ten stolen from him, of having his home stolen.

 

Contrary to what he had expected, his piano and dancing don’t help him to forget about Ten. It had seemed like Ten already painted everything with his color, for in each key he pressed, each dance steps that he took, the young guy was there.

 

It felt weird but right at the same time.

 

Youngho does not only basked in the music as he dances, not dancing feels like he is basking in Ten’s existence. It is no longer the music he is living and breathing in. it is in Ten.

 

Because everything now screams Ten,  _ Ten _ , Ten.

 

So he would stay in the practice room even longer than he usually did, because that is the only time he could relive his memory of Ten. Because Ten is no longer there for him, stolen by all the cameras and the fans.

 

Ten is no longer his only home, for he had become everyone’s.

 

Youngho was about to press play on a song when the door creaked open, making him look up.

 

There, holding the door knob, is Ten, smiling.

 

“John hyung,” he said, walking closer and closed the door behind. Youngho said nothing, his eyes locked at the younger.

 

Ten is there, walking towards him, wearing clothes that Youngho is sure are the ones he wore for the fansign as well.

 

Ten is there, showing Youngho his beautiful smile, eyes droopy with fatigue.

 

Then Ten sits beside him on the floor, leaning his head on Youngho’s shoulder. “Hyung~” he whines, and it’s then Youngho realised that he had not said anything to him.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Ten chuckles, pulling his head away from Youngho and looking up at him. His eyes, though looking tired, sparkles. Youngho feels like he is drowning in those beautiful black orbs.

 

“You didn’t reply to any of my messages and you weren’t home. So I’m here to take you home.”

 

Youngho laughs.

 

It feels weird.

 

It feels like Ten had just replaced a whole thunderstorm in Youngho’s heart into a bright blue sky.

 

In a split second, Youngho, who felt as though he was lost, homeless, having nowhere to go, was brought home.

 

Ten is still staring at him, lips still curved up in a smile. Though his gaze had changed into a confused one, not knowing why Youngho laughed.

 

And Youngho leans forward, enveloping him in a hug. The older guy closes his eyes as he puts his forehead on the back of Ten’s neck.

 

All the darkness that was in his heart got lifted and gone.

 

Ten did not come to take him home.

 

He came to bring him home. And Youngho _is_ home.


End file.
